Evidence of meeting #21 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was changes.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Dispute Resolution and International Affairs, Department of Employment and Social Development
That's correct.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Thank you, Mr. Brown.
Minister Qualtrough, I'm not going to leave you out. This one is for you. Thank you again for being here today.
I want to just touch on this issue. I know it's a very touchy subject. Over the last week we've been back and forth like a ping-pong ball, saying who's to blame for any delays
The debate day for the bill or the first day that we actually talked about this in the House of Commons was Monday. I'm sure you can understand that this is progressing at lightning speed. Of course, legislation has been doing that for over a year now. I think it was understandable at the beginning. I'm a little more hesitant to say that's an excuse we can use now, a year in.
Can you provide more of an understanding for committee members about why we didn't get this bill in January, for example?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
Thank you. I'm happy to elaborate.
As you said, one of the realities of the situation is that we are constantly monitoring the labour market. We were watching the unemployment rate go up in January. We were watching the labour market participation go down in January. We were watching the second wave of coronavirus hit the country and also result in sporadic regional shutdowns, particularly in eastern Canada.
We gave the bill to the parties around February 23, I think. We put it on the notice paper on February 25, knowing that it was only 11 clauses and a very straightforward and surgical bill aimed at addressing two brief very particular things. We figured that, working together as we had in the past, we'd be able to get this through the House quickly, understanding that we'd already gotten agreement from other parties to move forward on half of the bill, with the international travellers piece.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
My only concern is.... Well, I have a few concerns. When we spoke to the Canadian Labour Congress, which was a witness here earlier this week, they mentioned that they spoke to you in early January about their concerns that the 26 weeks would not be substantive enough.
In Manitoba, we were in very strict lockdowns again in mid-November. A number of other provinces were entering them at the same time. I felt like we knew this was coming. I feel all of the blame is being put on the opposition Conservatives, but I do feel that this bill should have been brought forward much sooner. I'm a little bit disappointed that it was not. You're saying you went as fast as you could. I appreciate that.
The other day in committee, Mr. Vaughan said that because of the process it has to go to the Treasury Board, finance and ultimately to cabinet. Did that process take quite a long time on your end? Is it the bureaucracy of the Liberal government machine that perhaps held this up?
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
No, but I would like to explain the process side.
The piece that was more difficult to navigate—and officials can elaborate—was the EI side. We had built in the ability to add additional weeks to recovery benefits through regulation, anticipating that we very well may have to. That process is very efficient. We knew that we had a certain amount of time before benefits ran out to be able to assess real-time labour market conditions.
On the EI side, we had to make changes to the legislation itself because, of course, employment insurance law isn't meant to address a pandemic. We've lived that for the past year. As Andrew said, it's not simply a matter of just.... It's a very complicated process, and they can do better justice to the complications than I.
With the EI amendments that are before you today, we wanted to make sure that we only had to open up this law once. How many exact weeks of extension could we afford to make sure it was equitable with the recovery benefits, but also to make sure that we weren't constantly having to go back to Parliament to open up this law and add weeks?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Minister.
Thank you, Ms. Dancho.
Next we're going to Ms. Young please, for six minutes.
Liberal
Kate Young Liberal London West, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you Minister Qualtrough for joining us today.
It's sometimes easy to forget that we are here in service to Canadians who are directly impacted by the decisions we make.
Since Bill C-24 was introduced, I've heard almost daily from my constituents in London West, concerned about their EI benefits running out and asking if the targeted changes in this bill were already in effect so that they could breathe a little easier.
On Tuesday we heard from labour leaders about how important it was that this legislation be passed. I wonder if we could get your thoughts on the importance of getting this bill through the House this week.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
Thank you.
Actually, the importance cannot be understated. We face a reality where the 1.7 million Canadians who access recovery benefits will have no disruption in their benefits in order for them to be extended, whereas EI recipients don't have that certainty.
Canadians will start exhausting their benefits the week before the 21st. They'll be looking to apply for benefits on March 26, I believe. Officials can clarify, but March 21 allows us time to make the system changes that we need to put in place in order for the system to be ready to receive those applications on March 26.
Can you confirm that, Andrew? I babbled a little there.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Dispute Resolution and International Affairs, Department of Employment and Social Development
That's correct. To have the ability to make those changes to the EI system in a seamless way, we would be looking to have royal assent of those proposed changes to the legislation by that weekend. I believe it's Friday, March 19.
Liberal
Kate Young Liberal London West, ON
Minister Qualtrough, what would be the impact for Canadians if we don't get this legislation through this committee until the House sits again? I guess that would be the week of March 21.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
It would be really difficult for EI recipients, because they would try to apply for another two weeks and they would be unsuccessful. They may in fact then call Service Canada to see what's going on and find out that their benefits have been exhausted. They may then try to apply for the CRB, but of course they would be told that because they had an open EI claim it wasn't possible.
It would create real chaos for Canadians. Also, our back-end systems would really be messed up. I guess that's the layperson's way of putting it. It really isn't an option for Canadians. If we want to continue with EI, we need to make this change before.
Liberal
Kate Young Liberal London West, ON
I wanted to talk about how our EI system turned 80 years old last summer. My understanding is that some of the programming language dates back to the 1960s. It's not necessarily in sync with modern Canada.
Last fall, we committed to modernizing the EI system. In a letter to you, the EI commission expressed hope that the government would launch an independent commission soon to do a more thorough review.
We've made some changes over the last few months, but I'm sure your experiences going through the COVID pandemic and C-24 revealed some of the problems with the system. There's clearly more to be done.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
Absolutely. To say that our existing system is clunky and complicated is probably an understatement. Successive governments have built and rebuilt and changed and modified different components, and it has been a Herculean effort on the part of officials to keep this system going and paying Canadians every two weeks through all of this.
There are two tracks going on right now around EI. There is the immediate track to make the changes needed to pivot during COVID—the law before you is one of those examples—and to determine what comes immediately next. As was explained, on September 25 all the temporary flexibilities within the system expire and the system goes back to the way it was pre-COVID. What in that batch of temporary changes should we keep as permanent, if any? Should we extend their temporariness? What would that look like?
Then the broader conversation that this pandemic has afforded us is to really dig in and modernize EI so that it works for all workers, because we clearly learned from this pandemic that it hasn't kept up with the way Canadians work.
Liberal
Kate Young Liberal London West, ON
Is the department looking at an independent commission to review the EI system?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
We have been working with different stakeholder groups, including the commissioner for employers, the commissioner for workers, the Canadian Labour Congress and other union groups. The plan is not to have a full-blown commission but to do consultations to allow us the flexibility of moving quickly on the things on which there is consensus now—things that have been talked about and studied forever that we can move on more quickly—and to not get those immediate advancements bogged down in the more complicated, longer-term conversations that need to happen, for example, around a benefit for the self-employed.
Liberal
Kate Young Liberal London West, ON
For now, our focus is on Bill C-24 and getting it passed as quickly as possible.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
Today, yes, it is. However, I know that you are studying EI at HUMA, and I am happy to come back and have the broader systemic conversation with you all because there are some really exciting opportunities.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Young.
Thank you, Ms. Qualtrough. Yes, I think we have a date for your appearance on that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Yes.
We will now move on to a round of questions, beginning with Ms. Chabot, and will suspend the meeting afterwards.
Ms. Chabot, you have the floor.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Minister.
I'd like to thank you, Minister, and the representatives of your department, for attending our meeting.
To begin with a compliment, we all agree that you were never unemployed this year, with a pandemic that hit everyone hard. You had to respond to the needs of nine million workers who, one year ago in March, found themselves unemployed from one day to the next.
I don't really have any technical questions for you about this bill. When all is said and done, its purpose is twofold: to extend regular employment insurance benefits to 50 weeks, which is until September 25, and to correct the situation with respect to the $1,000 benefit paid under the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit to people travelling for non-essential reasons.
It's urgent to take action, but what we have condemned from the very outset is not the fact that no action was taken, but rather not having shown more foresight. That was what I was worrying about last September in connection with Bill C-4 and that is still my concern today.
You said that you were monitoring the labour market with a view to adapting your programs, but over the past year, one thing has become clear, and that is that the status quo is not the answer. What will happen on September 25, 2021? The employment insurance system as we know it will be unable to meet needs during crises—there have in fact been others in our history—and it's not meeting them in normal unemployment circumstances.
So how do you plan to govern over the coming months to make sure that on September 25, 2021, a permanent program will be in place?